


Crest

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deanoned kink meme request for...look at the title. Fondling IDW Megatron's pretty frill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crest

Megatron’s steps were heavy, thudding into the churned ground as he left the Arena floor. He could feel the very last edges of energy, his fuel levels dangerously low. He had won—of course—but the team, all six of them, hadn’t been sparing of the energon lances they’d been given. His own energon dribbled fitfully from a half-dozen rent lines, spilling pink-purple over his dull grey armor. He wanted nothing more than some time in the repair bay, drowsing half-asleep under sensor block, and just…forget everything for a while. Forget what he’d endured, forget the flashes of memory—blows struck, received, agonized screams, his own hard grunts of pain.   
  
Not helped by the resounding blow of Betabear’s axe against his helm. His left optic was knocked still slightly out of phase, his cortex throbbing, a trickle of energon drying sticky-crusty down his cheek.  
  
He wanted a larger purpose, wanted to make this mean something. Not just for himself, not just money. For all of them—the forgotten, those who had no other option than to fight for sport.   
  
Honing himself, he thought, trudging through the dark tunnel toward the repair bay. A sport to them, while he sharpened himself into the weapon that would strike them down, before their very optics. And they paid for the right, for the spectacle.   
  
“Megatron.” Soundwave’s voice, quiet, cultured, a cool blade through the hot static of Megatron’s pain.  
  
Megatron stopped, head revolving toward the shape in the shadows. “Soundwave.”   
  
“Haste would be advised,” Soundwave said, stepping from the niche. “The authorities are surrounding this location.”  
  
Megatron cursed. Faster and faster, the Security forces were finding the arenas. It was taxing the Constructicons. Taxing resources. And draining Megatron of whatever paltry claim to patience he might have made.   
  
Even the curse, he realized, was a waste of valuable resources—energy and more importantly, time. He gave a quick blip to Frenzy and Rumble, the miner’s channel quick distress signal. They’d recognize it, know it for what it meant.   
  
“Follow me,” Soundwave said, turning, gold visored optics a quick smear in the darkness.   
  
“Why should I trust you?”  
  
“Should?” The helm tilted. “Trust is not an obligation. Not like that. However, in this instance, if my intent were to betray you, I could do so…without putting myself within your range.” Quiet amusement in the voice, audible even under the cool logic.

Megatron grunted. True enough. All Soundwave had to do if he’d intended to betray Megatron was stay away. Inform Security himself, sit back and watch. A thin thread of trust, but then again, at the beginning, on the Longshot, what had bound him to Rumble and Frenzy, after all? He lifted one hand—his good hand—signalling Soundwave to lead on. He followed the blue mech through the twisting tunnels, away from the area his Constructicons had turned into the temporary Arena, the twisting labyrinth where light and Security patrols never penetrated. He was too well-known, too familiar, by now, to travel openly.

Yet, he thought. One day he would walk free, freer than he ever had in the mines, sun shining down on his armor, on a free Cybertron.

Finally, Soundwave stopped, ushering him into a small nook, half-blocked by a metal panel. Inside, a small, clean but battered repair berth and a triage kit. Already set. Soundwave was either phenomenally organized…or prescient. It was not something Megatron could settle right now, pain alarms yellow blares over his HUD, his limbs dangerously undercharged. He fell heavily onto the berth.

“I regret I could not find a more suitable facility. There are repair shops in the area but I fear they might be…compromised.”

Megatron gave another grunt, his helm feeling immensely heavy, tipping itself back to the berth’s cool surface. “Adequate.”

“For most of your repairs, yes.” Soundwave held up a roll of patch tape, indicating his intent. Megatron managed a nod, and Soundwave bent, cleaning and taping over the split lines. Megatron hissed as the nanites in the tape activated his autorepair, stinging along each cut.

“Insufficient energon to replace your losses,” Soundwave said, holding up the three bags in the triage kit.

A shrug. Three units was better than nothing. “It’ll do.” He had a brief thought that the energon could be tainted, mixed with some tranquilizer, or worse. But no. Soundwave had easier ways, easier opportunities, to betray him. Just because he hadn’t figured out the blue mech’s motives—yet—didn’t make them malign.

Soundwave’s turn to nod, before he jabbed the catheter in a clean, neat, though not painless motion into a main line. Unpracticed, which somehow reassured Megatron. Soundwave was not in the business of backroom repairs.

Energon flowed through Megatron’s systems, a cascading, frothing rush of pure energy, soothing and tingling both at once. He felt capacitors gleefully fill with charge, pistons releasing. Better, much better. Perhaps he could think.

The others. Frenzy and Rumble would spread the word. Mechs would scatter, regroup, wait for the contact. Even the basest arena fighter knew the possible gain was worth the risk, even if all he cared about was fame or food. And if one or two got spooked? They wouldn’t have survived long anyway. Better they take this escape and live.

But what next? This couldn’t go on. This couldn’t continue for much longer. He had money. He had reputation. He had power. The one thing Megatron didn’t have was the most valuable resource of all: time.

He struggled to sit up, the motion arrested by Soundwave’s hand on his chassis. “Unwise.”

“Unwise is sitting here, waiting to be hunted down.”

“They will not find us.” The confidence was seductive, luring Megatron to believe it. “Security forces possess a considerable file.” Which, doubtless, Soundwave had seen. A bit imbalanced, for Soundwave to know intimate details, but hide behind that implacable mask withholding everything about himself other than what he openly offered—money, weapons. “That file indicates that you would be moving, fighting back. Not staying still.”

 

More of that jewel-hard logic. Was he that predictable? His cortex ached at the thought. Something for another time. Megatron grumbled, letting himself be eased back onto the repair berth. “I need to think,” he said, frowning. “To plan.” It felt like a confession, an admission, to say even that much.

A nod of assent. The hands came toward his helm, skimming the edges of the damage from Betabear’s axe. The hands stopped, seeking permission. Megatron gave a gruff nod, releasing the helm’s catches with an inward command.

A little awkwardness, the hands fumbling with the weight of it. Megatron felt a wry smile flicker to life across his face. Industrial-grade armor had given him his first edge in the arena. Heavy, dense: good protection…that could be turned to a good weapon.

Soundwave laid the helm down on a nearby crate, his gold optics studying Megatron’s unhelmed head. “Damage seems minor,” he said, hands brushing gently over the forehead panel. “Hinge mobility may be compromised.”

Megatron inclined his head into the touch, wincing as the fingers dug into a sensor cluster. Soundwave stepped around behind him, tugging gently at the folded panel. Megatron released the fold-command, letting the crest panel ease open.

“Photon collectors.” The hands smoothed down the crest panel’s edges.

Megatron grunted, finishing Soundwave’s thought. “Poor choice for a miner.” No good in the dark. A metaphor, a symbol he couldn’t yet parse.

“Unusual,” Soundwave agreed. He stroked the panel, curious. Megatron twitched, the gentle brushing touches skirling down his sensor net.  
“Adapted for friction,” Soundwave added.

Megatron nodded, gasping as the motion shifted the panel in Soundwave’s hand. The other mech’s fingers explored the S-shaped electrum contact points, tracing the line, the friction sending shivers over Megatron’s body, lighting the fresh energon as it raced through his fuel lines.

Soundwave moved to the next panel, pulling it out from its tight tuck, running careful hands over the contact plate, the thin metal of the underside. His touch was methodical, checking for functional errors, but that didn’t help Megatron from nearly quivering at the hard rush of stimuli over his sensor net. Each touch seemed magnified a hundredfold, light and color, tingling and sharp, spilling over his net. His ventilation caught.

“Discomfort?” Soundwave queried.

“No,” Megatron managed, his voice tight, hands curling into fists, as though grasping at reins of self control. The opposite, he thought, waves of pleasure riding over him, blocking the throbbing pain of his injuries. A shudder escaped his control, traveling through his body, ventilation hissing from between his dentae.

The hands stilled, the gold optics uncertain, looking down on Megatron’s suddenly tensed frame.

Megatron’s hands gripped the edge of the berth. “Stop,” he hissed, “Or finish it.” Soundwave couldn’t be this dense, he thought. They were friction-charged collection panels, and he was giving them…frictional charge, way more than they were used to from the slight rub of his helm on the contact points.

The masked face dipped in a nod, and the hands moved, less clinically, more gently, down to the side panels, coaxing them from their shy, tight fold, spreading them open with gentle fingers along the berth. The palms stroked gently down the panels, until the tips, the fingertips traveling along the beveled edges of the two sidemost panels, pinching together at the tip, before spreading, moving back up the wedge shape. Megatron shuddered, optics dimming.

A pause, one hand moving under the panels, cupping the undersides, while Soundwave leaned over, reaching into the triage kit, and then a burst of something sharp and cold over one of the contact plates. “Ethyl alcohol,” Soundwave murmured.   
  
Megatron didn’t care what it was, arching off the dented repair berth from the sudden shock of it as the alcohol evaporated, leaving the sensor plates stripped, sensitized. His entire body thrummed with tension, the new energon swirling with charge as it poured through his starved systems. And his sensornet, starved in its own way, alive to sensation, trembling under the light touches, his EM field shimmering and twisting. His optic shutters drifted closed, as Soundwave’s hands, shiny, satin-smooth, so unlike his own scratched, burred and dented digits, stroked down the crest panels again. It was soothing and arousing, relaxing and frustrating, both at once, some new, exquisite line of pleasure, wild and intense.   
  
He felt the cold burn of the alcohol again, on another contact plate, this time sweeping along the electrum contours. Megatron’s vocalizer fell into a growling moan. His core temp kicked up, warmer, until the heat was shimmering from his frame. His head lolled back against the berth, neck servos releasing, all of his awareness and concentration riveted to the four slim panels.   
  
Soundwave bent down to one knee, thumbs moving to trace the pattern on the forehead plated as he leaned in. Megatron felt the velvet pressure of another EM field against him, and then the warm shock of contact, the sleek brushed steel of a faceplate, nuzzling between two of the panels. He fought the urge to tip his head back, his instincts taut and wary, as though awaiting some attack from behind.   
  
But all Soundwave did was to continue his fingers’ slow journey along the crest panels, sliding flat palms and then teasing, tripping fingertips over the metal, and then the soft, vibrant hum from the faceplate, vibration traveling through the vocalizer.   
  
Tension fought along his frame, a warrior’s tight energy against the swirling, eddying waves of pleasure and release, scrubbing the exhaustion and pain from his frame. He wanted to snarl, demand haste, satisfaction, release but at the same time didn’t want to give that much acknowledgment of the power Soundwave had over him in this moment, this much weakness, as desire ran roughshod over his sense, his will.   
  
He snarled, fighting the volume of his voice, aware of the thinness of the metal panel between them and the corridor. Soundwave’s touch was inexorable, almost ruthless in its delicacy. Charge built up, a glittering fog over his vision, his frame twitching, heat gusting from his ventilation ducts, in soft, tingling waves of pressure.   
  
Soundwave sighed against him, vibration and air fuzzing over the sensorplates, pushing just enough to overload the panels’ collection grid. Megatron’s frame shocked rigid, powerful hands gripping into the berth hard enough to dent the metal, one heel driving hard into the berth. His mouth stretched into a soundless shape, current blazing across his frame, leaping over capacitors, blue fire dancing along the seams in his frame.   
  
Megatron dropped down hard onto the metal, heated from his aroused frame. His hands trembled, the panels still prickling, sparking charge to Soundwave’s slowly caressing fingertips.   
  
Soundwave straightened, abruptly, his face its usual mask of implacability, his hands tucking the crest panels demurely back flat against Megatron’s head. Megatron turned his head, studying the polished blue frame as Soundwave moved to retrieve his helm. The last washes of the overload fuzzed the edges of his video feed. He sat up, systems still rushing from the overload, but determined—now—to master it. “Motive,” he said, taking the heavy helm in his hands, pinching Soundwave’s fingers against the battered metal.The gold visor held his, absolutely steady. Either a consummate bluffer, or one with nothing to hide. “Eliminate pain. Increase charge load.”   
Almost…too logical. “Why.” He squeezed, one finger crushing down against the thin, civilian-grade plating of the smaller black hand.   
  
“It is in my interests for you to remain at liberty.” A hitch. “Your benefactor’s interests.”   
  
A slip? Megatron released the pressure, raising the helm, resettling it on his head. It already felt heavy, but a welcome weight, as though his head without it was too light, verging on vertigo. The internal locks engaged with soft clicks. “I see,” he said. He shifted forward, swinging his legs to stand. In the small space, he seemed to compress Soundwave, the last raw edges of his EM field licking at the blue armor, as he bent his head down, a deliberate press. It did not hurt, he thought, to reclaim initiative.   
  
“They will still be searching.”   
  
“I’ve followed your lead—your benefactor’s lead—,” he overcorrected, pointedly, “long enough.” He moved to the steel panel. “I am nobody’s tool. Not anymore.” His crest panels tingled, resettling under the friction mounts, mocking him. That he could be so easily controlled…? No.   
Control can be taken.   
  
This time, he had managed, somehow, fleetingly, to pull some pleasure from it.   
  
A pleasure he could repeat. It was like a new window opening, as he saw the uncertainty flicker for the first time behind the gold visor as he caught the gaze over his shoulder. He could control not solely through pain, through domination, but through pleasure, through succumbing. It was a valuable lesson. If Soundwave thought he could—would—be manipulated through this? He was up for a considerable disappointment.   
  
He’d had his origin, his class, his vocation thrown in his face, held against him, again and again. He’d turned them all on their heads, every vile label they’d slapped on him. Criminal? Outlaw? He transcended those labels, turned their slanders into some perverse praise. He would not let his body, its desires, its needs, be turned against him. He could master the reins, turn them into snares for others, their ambitions and desires. Soundwave would be the first.  
  
He had been a pawn before. He would never be again.

 


End file.
